


A melody played in a penny arcade

by Em_Jaye



Series: The Long Way Around [38]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artistic Liberties, Baby Names, Birthday, Childbirth, Darcy Lewis Feels, F/M, Hospitals, Implied/Referenced Death in Childbirth, Medical Inaccuracies, Post-Endgame, Pregnancy, Protective Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:01:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26074582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Jaye/pseuds/Em_Jaye
Summary: Woody Allen once said, 'If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." With that in mind, Darcy had to wonder if there was anyone who could make God laugh quite like Steve Rogers.January 11 1977: Delivery
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers
Series: The Long Way Around [38]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1402126
Comments: 118
Kudos: 235





	A melody played in a penny arcade

**Author's Note:**

> Well this was definitely not supposed to take three months (three months?) to write but here we are. Every time I thought about writing this fic, I got distracted by something else which is why, if you've subscribed to me, you'll notice a wave of new works in progress which all cropped up while I was procrastinating on this one. Brains are weird, mine's been a scumbag for most of this summer and the world is on fire so I guess we are all just doing what we can to put one word in front of the other.
> 
> All that is to say, this is overdue and I'm sorry but I hope you like it. Because I love you.

January 11, 1977

Steve hated hospitals. He always had. He’d spent too much time in and out of them as a child. He’d had to watch his mother waste away in one as a young man. And while his lungs were healthy now and his life here in 1977 such that he didn’t have so much cause for hospital stays anymore, he still hated them. He’d never tell her this, but he had always wished Darcy hadn’t chosen to work in one. It was still so hard to separate the smells that clung to her hair and clothes when she came home from so many of his worst memories.

Memories of nuns praying over him nearly every winter when pneumonia inevitably took hold.

Memories of his mother, her lips stained red from the blood she kept coughing up into her handkerchief. _I’ll be good as new in no time,_ she’d lied for as long as she could.

Memories of field hospitals in Europe during the war. The blown off limbs and the boys screaming for their mamas.

That horrible recreation they’d built when he woke up in 2011. The nursing home where he used to visit Peggy.

He hated hospitals.

Not that he wasn’t grateful that Darcy was here now—that she’d been at work when her water broke and had Tangie to hold her hand and keep her calm until he could get here. He didn’t want to think about how much worse this could have been if she’d been at home.

Tangie had been the one to call him. The office had patched her directly through to his classroom, interrupting his lesson on impressionism and sending his whole world into a tailspin when she’d told him to get his fine white ass (her words) down to the hospital because Darcy had been taken upstairs a few minutes earlier. But she’d laughed when he asked if she was okay. “No, she’s not okay!” she’d exclaimed, sounding giddy and excited. “She’s havin’ your baby, mister! Get down here!”

And he knew he shouldn’t have gone to work that day. He should have stayed home because Darcy’s back was killing her, and she’d hardly slept the last few nights because of all the kicking and moving around in her belly. But he’d listened when she’d scoffed and shoved him out the door, promising she’d be fine. “I don’t think this kid is going anywhere,” she’d assured him, one hand resting on her swollen midsection while she watched him reluctantly pack his bag for work. “I think I’m just going to be pregnant forever.”

If he had just listened to his gut, he wouldn’t have been stuck in traffic. He wouldn’t have slid into her hospital room in wet shoes and nearly crash into a cart full of instruments nearly an hour after Tangie had called him. He wouldn’t have been the reason Darcy—hair soaked with sweat and face beet-red—had dropped her head back and wailed, “Where have you _been_?”

And if he’d been on time and if he’d been allowed to stay with her during the actual delivery instead of shoved outside with the rest of the expectant fathers—

And…what?

This would have happened anyway.

It was his fault, sure, but him getting here earlier wouldn’t have stopped it. Wouldn’t have helped it. Maybe if either of them had known this could happen—had even _thought_ this could happen…

Maybe if he’d paid closer attention to all the things Darcy joked about while she was pregnant, he could have sensed there might be a problem earlier. She could have made something up to tell the doctors, to tip them off that everything was not as smooth and seamless as it appeared. But she was so happy and healthy and _normal_ and _nothing had felt wrong_ , he reminded himself for what felt like the hundredth time.

There was a soft, barely audible little sound from the bundle of blankets in his arms. Steve’s heart stuttered and he felt the air pulled from his lungs as he looked down at soft blue eyes and heart-shaped lips and into the absolutely perfect face of his daughter.

She was only a few hours old. Seven pounds, four ounces, twenty inches long, and the most beautiful thing Steve had ever seen. Her hair was dark and thick enough that the nurse commented on it when she’d come in to check on them the first time. He’d heard her cry, which had made _him_ cry. And Darcy had cried when she’d held the baby to her chest, whispering as the tears streaked down her cheeks how much she loved her. And they had all been a mess.

A beautiful, perfectly normal, happy mess.

For a few hours.

The baby in his arms made another sound and shifted slightly against her blankets. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” he said softly. She didn’t have a name yet. Despite what they’d joked, this pink-skinned, blue-eyed baby girl just didn’t quite look like a Beyonce. He moved the blankets and felt his heart spring squarely into his throat when the tiniest arm emerged, and five impossibly small and impossibly perfect fingers closed around his thumb. “It’s okay,” he said again, his voice low, but thick with everything he was trying to choke back. “I got ya,” he promised. “I’m here.”

She didn’t start crying. She looked like she was considering it, but she stayed quiet, seeming to be studying him with her large, round eyes. The longer they stayed looking at each other, the quicker the maybes and the what-ifs and the coulda-shouldas faded from his thoughts. He swallowed hard and ran his hand over the baby’s downy brown hair. Her head fit in the palm of his hand like a softball— _how could she be so small?_

It didn’t matter what could have been done or should have been done or what might have happened differently if he hadn’t gotten stuck in traffic. The only thing that mattered was what _had_ happened.

And what had happened was that Darcy had delivered this perfectly healthy, beautiful baby girl.

And then something had gone very wrong.

_“Can you hold her?” Darcy asked, not making a move to offer the baby to him as he got up from the foot of the bed._

_“Of course.” His hands covered hers as he took the soft, warm bundle from her arms. She was freezing. “You okay?” He asked, studying her with a more critical eye. She looked pale. Pale even for her. And her eyes seemed to have trouble focusing on his question. “Hey,” he frowned, concerned and ducked his had to meet her gaze. “Darce. You with me? “_

_It had been a joke. Not meant to be a trick question._

_She pursed her lips and wet them. Her actions were deliberate, like she was trying a little too hard. “I’m okay,” she said, blinking slowly, shaking her head. “I think…” she laughed weakly. “I think I’m just tired.”_

_“Okay,” he said uneasily and stood up to press a kiss to her forehead. Her skin was cold. Clammy. Everything inside of him tensed. “Don’t worry about staying up on our account,” he joked again lightly, glancing down at their daughter before he looked back up. “I’m gonna go get you some more blankets, alright?”_

_She nodded like her head weighed thirty pounds and managed another smile. “I’m not cold, though.”_

_“Yeah,” he assured her. “You are.” He kissed her again. “I’ll be right back.”_

_He was still holding the baby when he stepped into the hallway. The nearest nurse was down the hallway, just stepping out of another room when he caught her eye. She looked at him, then at the baby, and back at him with a smile. “Everything okay?”_

_“Uh, I don’t…” He hadn’t wanted to say ‘no’. To admit that something might be really wrong. “It’s my wife,” he said and motioned with his head back toward Darcy’s room. “She was fine until about twenty minutes ago and now she’s really pale and cold and I think—”_

_“Let’s see what’s up,” the nurse cut him off with a polite smile and they started walking back together. “Fluctuation in body temperature isn’t uncommon with new mothers,” she assured him. “But I’m due to check on her anyway so It’s a good thing you came and got me.”_

_He might have been comforted by this if Darcy had still been awake when they returned to her room. Or if she’d responded to the nurse calling her name or the light tap she gave her cheek._

_He might have thought everything was going to be just fine if that nurse hadn’t started checking for vital signs and if the machine monitoring Darcy’s blood pressure hadn’t started blaring that there was a serious problem._

_And even with all that, he might have believed that these were all run of the mill problems, if the nurse hadn’t shifted the blankets on Darcy’s bed and found the bottom sheet soaked with blood._

_But all that together is what made the nurse slam her hand against the call button and push him out of the room in time to let a small team of doctors and nurses rush in. He stood outside helpless, useless, trying to see what they were doing, to hear enough of hat they were saying to determine the problem. And then they were steering Darcy’s hospital bed through the door, past him without a word, and back down the hall toward the elevators._

_“What are you doing?” he asked when they had wheeled the bed back through the door. “Where are you—” No one even looked at him. “Hey,” he barked at the nurse he recognized as she started to follow the unit now sprinting down the hall. “What the hell is going on? What’s wrong? Is she okay?”_

_“That’s what we're trying to find out,” she said quickly, though not entirely without compassion. “I’ll be back with an update as soon as I can. Just wait here.”_

Just wait here.

That had been almost two hours ago. Two other nurses who didn’t know Darcy and couldn’t tell him anything, had offered to take the baby back to the nursery from him. But she’d been sleeping despite the noise and commotion from before and he couldn’t stomach the idea of anyone taking her away from him.

Not yet.

Not until someone told him what was wrong with Darcy.

That someone was Darcy’s obstetrician, Dr. Li, who found him a half hour later and sat down in the chair beside him. Even though everything in his body was tensed and waiting for bad news, he took a modicum of comfort in the fact that she didn’t look like she was there to offer condolences.

“Hi Mr. Grant,” she said in her soft, doctor voice as she sat down.

“What happened?” he demanded, not waiting for an exchange of pleasantries. “Where is Darcy? Is she okay? What’s wrong with her?”

The young woman nodded, not bothered by his abruptness. “Darcy is upstairs in Intensive Care,” she said patiently. “They're working to stabilize her and figure out the extent of what’s wrong, but I wanted to come down and update you in person and see if you needed anything.”

“Stabilize her?” he repeated. “Stabilize her from what? What happened?” he asked again, willing himself not to lose his temper. He was suddenly even more grateful for this little girl he could not set down; she gave him something to do with his hands other than clench them into fists.

Dr. Li opened her mouth and closed it again before she seemed to think and start over. “Darcy lost a lot of blood in a very short amount of time,” she said finally. “Much more than would have been expected, given how healthy she was prior to giving birth.” She pursed her lips and a line of concern appeared between her thin, black eyebrows. “I’ve been her doctor since the start of her second trimester,” she added, reminding him although he hadn’t forgotten. “She never once gave any indication that she might be anemic or have any kind of clotting disorder in the whole time I’ve known her. It never presented in her bloodwork; she never showed any symptoms—”

“That’s because she’s… not anemic,” he said slowly. Because she wasn’t. He’d known Darcy for seven years—he was almost certain he knew everything he needed to know about her medically. “And she doesn’t have any kind of—” he stopped and frowned. “She has… asthma, sometimes? And allergies. But otherwise…”

“Anemia isn’t an uncommon development during pregnancy,” Dr. Li offered, picking up the dangling thread of what he’d been about to say. “There are things we can do to prevent any kind of excessive blood loss during birth but Darcy….” She frowned again. “It’s not just the blood loss,” she went on. “She’s severely dehydrated and—I can’t say for sure yet, but I would guess—nutrient deficient which is making anything we try to do take longer…” She trailed off again. “I’ve never heard of anything like this, to be perfectly honest.”

Those words wrapped around Steve’s heart like icy fingers. “What do you mean?”

Unbidden, another memory rose from the recesses of his mind. The memory of Patricia Murphy, who lived down the hall when he was growing up. Who had seven children already by the time Steve was ten years old. Whose husband had banged on their door frantically in the middle of the night, begging Steve’s mother to help his wife. Patricia Murphy, who had delivered an eighth healthy baby with Sarah’s help, but whose blood had soaked through all the towels and sheets Steve kept running down the hall all through the night at his mother’s request. Patricia, who could not wake up to hold her new baby. Patricia, who was dead by dawn and whose blood stuck under his mother’s fingernails for days, no matter how much she scrubbed. _Women die in childbirth sometimes,_ Sarah had told him sadly, when he’d asked if there was anything else they could have done to save her. _It’s just one of those things._

“I think she’s going to pull through just fine,” Dr. Li said firmly, but not so much with optimism as with grim determination. “But it’s as if everything that _should_ have given her issues during her pregnancy suddenly all caught up at once.” Her thoughtful frown deepened and drew lines around her mouth as well, making her look much older. “Like there was something—I don’t know—almost propping up her system? Blocking any indication anything was wrong?”

Steve felt his heart sink. Something like the super-soldier serum. Something that amplified strength and energy, but only while it was in the body. If it was ever taken away, he’d read once in Dr. Erskine’s notes, everything would revert back to normal. With interest.

Dr. Li resettled herself and reached out to place her small hand on Steve’s arm. “We’re doing all we can,” she said resolutely. “And I have every confidence that she’s going to be just fine. In the meantime,” she added, a little more delicately. “I’m happy to take this beautiful little girl to the nursery so that you can get something to eat or…if there’s anyone you want to call—”

Steve looked over at her, confused. He forced the thoughts of Patricia Murphy and all the worst-case scenarios thoughts of her brought with them. Who the hell was he supposed to call? What was he supposed to say? He wanted to demand these questions out loud before he realized that this doctor didn’t know why there were no brand new grandmothers waiting to sit with him, no aunts and uncles arriving unannounced but carrying gifts. He forced down the panic again, spent one second desperately missing his own mother, and nodded.

They weren’t entirely alone, he reminded himself. There were plenty of people who loved Darcy—loved him and this tiny baby by association—that deserved to know what was going on.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “That’s probably…” he nodded again. “Yeah.”

Dr. Li held out her hands, but Steve tensed again, involuntarily, unwilling to hand over his daughter. She smiled briefly and nodded. “You can follow me,” she said quietly, and stood before he could protest.

The nursery was at the end of the hall, past the large window with a view of all the newborns, squirming in bassinets in blue or pink skull caps and matching striped blankets. To Steve’s surprise Jennifer Tucker was the nurse who met them at the door. His former student who had been with Darcy when she’d had her first sonogram—who’d been the one to slip accidentally and tell him Darcy was pregnant. Her brown eyes went wide and she sucked in an audible inhale as her hands went to her heart.

“Oh my gosh!” she squealed with excitement. “I only just got here and saw Darcy’s name on the board and I was making myself wait but all I wanted to do was run down and see this baby for myself,” she scurried across the small space and, with a huge grin that dimpled her round cheeks, peeked over Steve’s arm to see the baby. She gasped again. “Ohmygosh, Mr. Grant,” she looked up, eyes sparkling. “She is just _perfect_ —”

Despite that he felt no better at all, Steve felt himself smile and relax just a little. “She is,” he admitted. “Isn’t she?”

“Jennifer, I don’t know if you’ve been alerted, but Darcy’s been taken upstairs with some complications,” Dr. Li broke in, her tone sounding more like she was saying that Darcy had been taken upstairs for a manicure. “So, we’re going to give Dad a break for an hour or so, okay?”

His former student nodded and lifted the baby from his arms before he could think about whether or not he could let her go yet. “Say ‘bye Daddy,’” Jennifer said to the baby, a million times more at ease than he had been holding her. She looked up. “What’s her name?”

He shook his head. “She—uh—she doesn’t have one yet.”

“Okay,” Jennifer shrugged. “Baby Girl Grant it is.” She bent her head and pressed a kiss her fluffy dark hair and looked up again. “She’ll be fine, Mr. Grant,” she said, managing not to sound patronizing.

“Right,” he nodded, feeling an unfamiliar and ridiculous tightening in his chest. “I won’t be long.”

“Take your time,” Dr. Li assured him kindly.

He managed to go three whole steps before he looked back to make sure she was okay. She was. Fussing a little in her nurse’s arms but perfectly safe and cared for.

He made it down the hall and around a corner before he dropped down onto a another bench and put his head in his hands. Too many thoughts spun through his head. Too many feelings squeezed at his heart.

Too many. Too much.

He forced himself back on his feet and over to the bank of payphones near the elevators. He made himself call Tangie and Darren.

He would have made himself call June and Ray, but Tangie told him she’d take care of it. Tangie told him she’d take care of everything, actually. And that she’d be back for her shift in the morning, but he could call any time, day or night. And then she told him that she loved him and mercifully hung up before he could choke out any kind of response around the lump that had rushed to his throat.

He made himself go down to the cafeteria and eat whatever was first suggested to him—an open-faced meatloaf sandwich he didn’t taste and wouldn’t have liked it if he had—and drink a cup of coffee before he started to wander.

He didn’t have anywhere else to go and his phone call and dinner had taken less than twenty minutes. He guessed if he went back to the nursery now, they’d tell him to take another few laps. So, he wandered up and down the hallways trying to keep his mind clear, to keep focusing on the things he knew to be true and not let his imagination, his penchant for worst-case scenarios, scramble his brain.

His daughter was perfectly healthy. That was something he was sure of. In a few days they would take her home and she’d grow up in their little yellow house in her room with the Truffula trees on the walls and she’d be happy and healthy and never go to bed with an empty stomach or worry that she might not survive a harsh winter.

There was no way they could have known this would have happened. Another certainty. No matter how his guilt wanted to twist his guts and his heart. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. _Of course,_ Darcy would not get to keep the health benefits of the serum after she’d given birth. _Of course,_ all the things she thought she’d been feeling had been because of what she was sharing with the baby. It wasn’t _her_ serum. It wasn’t in _her_ blood. But just because it made sense in hindsight did not mean it could have been prevented. That might have been cold comfort, but it was comfort, nonetheless.

Darcy was going to be okay. He knew that, too. In his heart he knew that Darcy was stronger than him, that she was more stubborn, more of a fighter, and more determined to get what she wanted than anyone he’d ever met. And he knew that what she wanted more than anything was to go home with him so they could raise the tiny little girl upstairs together and do everything they’d planned. So, she was going to be okay. She had to be.

Because something else Steve knew—he couldn’t do this by himself.

He stopped walking as he reached the end of the hallway and looked up, surprised to find he had found himself at the door to the hospital chapel. “Okay,” he said out loud, just under his breath. “Couldn’t hurt.”

The chapel was small and silent, totally empty and with only a few dim overhead lights. A few pews, a pulpit, and a crucifix. A double row of prayer candles in thick, red glass canisters lined one wall. It wasn’t a Catholic hospital, but Steve crossed himself anyway as he walked past the cross on his way to the second pew from the back.

He thought about kneeling for a second before he decided to sit, his hands folded between his knees. His chin dropped out of habit and he swallowed hard. “I know it’s been a minute,” he said quietly, even though there was no one around to hear him. “But I don’t know who else to talk to. And I know I don’t have to come to church to talk to you,” he felt the edge of his lips lift as he exhaled a half-smile. “But you always told me I should go more so…here I am, Ma.” He was quiet for a long moment, as if waiting for a response, perhaps waiting for Sarah Rogers to hear that her son needed to talk to her and stop whatever she was doing on the other side to come and sit next to him and listen.

It was a stupid thought, he felt like an idiot for entertaining it. He shook his head and stared down at his laced fingers. He ran his thumb absently along the edge of his opposite palm and thought about how his daughter’s whole head fit in the palm of his hand—how her whole little body could tuck into the crook of his arm.

“You have a granddaughter,” he said finally. “She’s…she’s beautiful,” he smiled softly before another rush of emotion stung at the back of his throat and behind his nose. “And Darcy…” he stopped himself and squeezed his eyes shut, forcing back any tears that wanted to fall. He sniffed hard. “Darcy’s going to be fine,” he said with a single nod, his voice steady for a whole second before his face finally crumpled and his vision blurred. “But I really wish you were here.”

 _I wish I wasn’t alone,_ he wanted to say out loud. _I wish you could tell me it was going to be okay. Please,_ he thought so loud he could almost hear the words echo in the empty room. _Please just tell me it’s going to be okay._

He knew that if his mother were there, she couldn’t have known if it _was_ going to be okay any more than he did. But he also knew that if she’d been there to sit with him, to put her hand in his and let him put his head on her shoulder, that he would have believed her when she told him it would be.

“ _Yes, it’s only a canvas sky—”_

Steve’s head shot up as the sound crackled through the silent chapel. His heart firmly in his throat, he stopped and stared as a small door he hadn’t noticed before opened and a short, older man stepped out, a pocket radio playing in his hand.

 _“Hanging over a muslin tree,_ ” Peggy Healy crooned over the static from the small speaker. _“But it wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed in me._ ”

The older man was dressed all in black and he wore a white collar at his neck. He didn’t notice Steve until he’d locked the door behind him and turned around. “Oh!” he jumped a little and turned the volume down on the radio. “I’m sorry,” he said, flushing pink around the ears. “I didn’t realize anyone was here.”

Steve managed a smile and shook his head around the heart still hammering in his throat. “It’s—it’s okay,” he said finally. “I was just…” He stopped. “You don’t have to turn your music off.”

The chaplain smiled back and looked down at his radio. “I’m a sucker for the oldies,” he admitted. “I know it makes me a square these days but—”

“No,” Steve said, standing up. “It’s…uh…” he coughed as he reached the end of the pew. “That was my mom’s favorite song,” he admitted finally. He’d saved his pennies for months to buy the record for her birthday. She played it all the time, trying to teach him how to dance in their cramped, drafty living room, laughing when he stepped on her toes before the coughing got too bad that she had to stop.

He hadn’t heard that song in decades.

The older man nodded, his smile a little more sympathetic as he picked up the way Steve had said ‘was’. “Are you okay, son?” he asked once the last few bars of the music had faded and one of the local DJs began to speak again. He turned the nob of the radio until it clicked off. “I’m on my way home for the night but…is there something I could help you with?”

“I’m okay,” he said automatically before he stopped and shook his head. The chaplain hadn’t moved, but smiled patiently as if he knew that was a lie. “My, um, my wife is upstairs,” Steve said after another moment of considering whether he was going to let anyone help him. “Intensive Care. She just—she just had a baby this afternoon.”

“Oh my,” the chaplain said, his already wrinkled brow folding further. “Is the baby alright?”

He nodded. “She’s fine,” he said. “She’s healthy.”

“Well that’s a blessing,” his companion said. “Would you like me to pray for your wife?”

Steve blinked. “Um. Sure,” he said. “Her name is Darcy.”

The chaplain nodded. “And your name?” he asked. “If you don’t mind?”

“I’m Steve.”

The other man extended his hand and they shook. “Steve, I’m Chaplain Jim, it’s nice to meet you. I hope you know you can stay here as long as you need,” he motioned to the empty sanctuary.

“Thank you,” he said. “But I want to go back upstairs and see my daughter.”

“Of course,” Chaplain Jim nodded again. “And you’ve got—” he hesitated for a second. “There are people here for you, aren’t there?” He offered a concerned, but timid smile. “You’re not alone?”

Steve returned the brief smile and shook his head. “No,” he said quietly. “I’m not.”

It had probably only been a coincidence, not his mother finding a way to reassure him that everything was going to be okay, but he didn’t care. Because by the time he made it up the three flights of stairs to the maternity ward, Dr. Li was waiting for him with good news.

***

He wasn’t allowed to stay while they kept Darcy in the ICU overnight, but she had been returned to the maternity ward by the time he arrived first thing in the morning. The rain had stopped sometime before dawn and the room they’d moved her to—a different room than the day before—was full of soft, golden light when he stopped in the doorway. Someone had already brought the baby back to Darcy and she held her in her arms, her head bent, speaking to her in a sweet, low voice while her messy dark curls slipped over her shoulder. The color was back in her cheeks and the ashen, blue hue gone from her fingernails when he saw their daughter reach her little hand up to wrap around Darcy’s thumb.

“What a firm grip you have,” she told the baby with a quiet laugh. “So very strong. Can I have this back?” she laughed again and tried to wiggle her thumb from her grip. “Just for a second,” she promised, “then you can have it back.” She pulled her hand free long enough to tuck her hair behind her ear, catching sight of where he’d stopped, stuck with his heart in his throat, in the doorway. She looked over with a soft smile. “You gonna stand there all day?”

The spell broken, he was across the room in seconds, covering her face with kisses while she laughed and cried and their tears mingled on her cheeks and Steve thought his heart might actually finally give out from feeling so much.

“She is going to need a name,” he said later, after Tangie had left after her first break of the morning.

“Yeah,” Darcy agreed, looking down at the sleeping girl in her arms. She’d been fed and changed since Steve had arrived and had dropped right back to sleep almost immediately. “I know. I don’t think they’ll let us take her home without one.”

“I guess we could keep calling her Smudge,” he suggested, only mostly joking. “Although I’m not sure they’ll let us put that on her birth certificate.”

Darcy smiled and bent to kiss the baby’s head before she looked up again. “Why didn’t your mom name you after your dad, again?”

The question surprised him. “Uh, she said she didn’t think babies should be named after the dead,” he recalled. “Too much to live up to.”

She digested this with a slow nod. “What if…” she paused and pursed her full lips together in thought. “What if we named her after someone—” she frowned. “Well, I guess I don’t know if he’s even been born yet.”

Steve mirrored her frown, feeling his brow furrow. “What do you want to name her?”

Darcy bit her lip and looked hopeful. “Sam?”

At the sound of his name, a million memories of Sam rushed at Steve all at once. From the first day he’d met him when he’d joked around and treated him like he was just another vet, to all the times he’d stayed with him, risking his life, sacrificing his own freedom, so that Steve wouldn’t have to be alone. All the times he’d made him laugh when it seemed like nothing was ever going to be funny again. And that day on the battlefield in New York. The sound of his voice coming through the comms. All that Steve had needed to know that they were going to win. That everything was not lost after all. That things could be good again.

His vision blurred as he got up and bent to kiss Darcy. He swallowed down the lump in his throat and rested his forehead against hers, their daughter sleeping between them. “I think it’s perfect.”

After all, according to Darcy’s mother, every great adventure needed a Sam.

**Author's Note:**

> This is *not* one of my favorite fics, just FYI. It fought me tooth and nail and by the time it was finished I felt like *I'd* just been through labor trying to get it here. I feel like that probably shows in the writing. Here's hoping the next part will be better. 
> 
> \--
> 
> Come play with me on tumblr: @idontgettechnology and join me at ishipitpod.com for weekly podcast on fandom and fanfic by yours truly.
> 
> *kisses*


End file.
